


Flashback

by feyrelay



Series: Bellarke Flashfic Challenges [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Counted Word Fic, Episode Related, F/M, Flash Fic, Loss, Short One Shot, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 16:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19023976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: Welcome to the new age.Counted Word Fic. 900 Words.(Spoilers for season 6 in general and 6x05 specifically.)





	Flashback

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tangodoodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangodoodles/gifts).



Bellamy waits, because that’s the logical thing to do. Six years on the Ring taught him patience, above all else. (2,197; 2,198; 2,199…)

Having a sister like Octavia and a mother like Aurora taught him many things, too, about the independence of women and the pure folly of thinking that his feelings, no matter how fervent, could control them.

Love, the ideal love that called his favorite Greek heroes home from war, causes nothing but pain and foolish mistakes. He didn’t need Homer’s epics to teach him that. No, Bellamy learned that every time his mother danced with a man for credits, precariously balancing the needs of today with the bill coming due tomorrow.

He remembers how other men, powerful men like the captain of the guard and Kane, even, had watched from the sidelines.

So, Bellamy waits. He refuses to be that man, even as ire burns short and rapid through him and he snaps at Echo, who doesn’t deserve it.

It would be crazy to think that there’s something wrong with Clarke just because she’s happy.

***

But, there _is_ something wrong with Clarke. He knows it.

(Calm yourself.)

Bellamy knows it’s awful and controlling of him to think that Clarke ought not to be so happy and cheery and unconcerned. Just because _he_ has never known her to be this way, has always known her happiness to come sneaking in like water trickling through rocks (pure and quiet), it shouldn’t automatically mean that something is amiss.

He has no claim on her. If she wants to hook up with someone she just met, well. Turnabout is fair play, he supposes. He’s in a relationship with someone who tried to kill them all, once.

(Chill out.)

***

Madi reminds him so much of Octavia. It’s a bright and happy feeling, unmarred by the problems between him and his actual last remaining blood relative. Madi is like a daughter he could have had, in another life.

Like O, she wants nothing more than to go out and participate in the world, hold it in her hands and turn it over until she understands all the things isolation has kept secret from her. He gets that, and he knows Clarke gets that, too.

He knows there’s nothing Clarke wants more than to be able to give Madi all the things she wants, but they bear the burden so their kids don’t have to, he supposes.

If he’d said ‘no’ to Octavia and not tried to give her the world, after all, maybe none of them would be here. Their mother would be alive, at the very least.

He feels guilty that he wonders if he’d rather stick with what he has, now. (Everything we did was to bring us here…)

It’s a surprise that shakes him straight out of his melancholy when Clarke allows Madi to go to school. Things hadn’t exactly gone well the last time Madi had tried to integrate, in the freshly-opened bunker.

The naked joy in Madi’s eyes is welcome, sure, but something is off. Gaia seems uneasy, as well.

But, Bellamy allows it. He knew Clarke, once, and he (unlike some other members of their crew) can admit that Clarke has been known to make the rare illogical decision once in a while, just to make someone special to her smile. Not even the legend of the stone-cold Wanheda can erase that. He reconciles that this is just such a time, and smiles at Clarke, inquires in an even tone about her activities with the stupid, handsome doctor.

Her eyes are bright and remind him somehow of a raccoon counting its stolen haul. Happiness, if that’s what this is, looks good on her; he tells her so to hide his discomfort with her sudden frankness.

(He’d never asked about her exploits with Lexa. Hadn’t dared.)

Bellamy wonders if maybe Clarke is hiding her pain behind promiscuity, if she learned that trick from Raven. And, speaking of Raven, is there any way Clarke could be having the same symptoms as her mother and the mechanic, from having the Flame in her head? Maybe cryo exacerbated the brain injury? Or maybe something new, something he doesn’t know the whole, gory story of, from those six long years?

(We  _can’t_ lose Clarke…)

It’s just that Bellamy thinks she seems a little slower than usual, a little underwater. Trig seems rough on her, though she’s the best non-native speaker they’ve got.

( _Tripi_.)

***

Losses come in threes; he should have remembered that.

His father, his mother, his sister.

Wells, Charlotte, Finn.

Roma, Monroe, Gina.

300 crispy Grounders, 300 Mountain Men (and women and children...), 300 Trikru.

And when it comes to lovers: Lincoln, Lexa, Shaw.

So, when they’d lost Monty and Harper and gained a brand new planet to destroy, well, he hadn’t exactly been surprised to lose Shaw. He knows it hurts Raven to think she’s cursed, to think she’s an omen of death, but he’d truthfully felt a bit relieved once the shock had passed.

Losing Shaw means Clarke and Madi are safe from his Old World superstition.

***

Bellamy sees the moment the impostor gives up, hears her ask after the etymology of a Trig word that he knows Clarke knows, and his oh-so-ordinary red blood rushes in his ears.

He forgot; this is a New World, with its own rules.

No one is really safe, here.

**Author's Note:**

> Tripi = 'weird' or 'strange' in Trigedasleng from English 'trippy'.


End file.
